We round a corner and walk into an open space.
And there she is.
Eliza Hamilton.
Looking like a blood-coated angel, and smiling like we’ve just walked into the pub, and not a crime scene.
The body on the floor is unmissable. Extremelylarge, and not exactly intact. The head has been rolled off to the left, resting next to a scarlet-edged chainsaw. Battery powered.How efficient.
The arms and legs are severed too, into chunks. Vomit hits the back of my throat, bitter and stinging.
A drain in the centre of the room stands open, too small to fit a person in.
In one piece.
Maggie stops dead, her hand gripping mine almost painfully.
‘Eliza, I told you I don’t want to be involved in this anymore. I thought you were in danger.’
‘You know I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t really need a hand.’
Maggie lets out a brittle laugh. ‘You needmyhelp?’
Eliza’s eyes move from Maggie’s face to mine.
‘Well… I need Roman’s help.’
Ah.
‘You can’t ask him to do that,’ Maggie says. ‘You can’t implicate him in this.’
‘This fucker is too big to move, and my chainsaw is out of juice. He’s supposed to go down the drain, but the lardy cunt won’t fit if I can’t chop him into more pieces,’ Eliza gesturing vaguely at the torso like it wasn’t recently a living being. ‘I managed to get the legs and arms and head off, but I can’t shift this bloody thing on my own, and I need the place cleaned up before morning. I’m going to have to take the body elsewhere to deal with it. Probably back to the pigs, which is super bloodyannoying because I’m booked into the spa here for the weekend.’
She speaks in clipped annoyance. I can’t imagine being so blase about death.
‘Roman. You don’t have to—’ Maggie starts.
I already am.
I take off my coat and roll up my sleeves, fighting the way my brain screamsabsolutely not. Too late. I’d do anything for Maggie, and by extension, Eliza.
‘It’s alright, babe. Not my first rodeo, huh? I’ll do anything for you.Anything.’
Eliza beams. ‘Knew I liked you.’
‘You can’t mean that.’ Maggie watches me with eyes as big as plates.
I look at her, bracing herself to argue with her sister, to protect me.
And I realise Maggie doesn’t know.
I’d help her bury a body.
Fuck, I’d kill someone for her.
‘I mean every word.’
Because whatever family she was born into, shechoseme. And if loving her means occasionally lifting a dead man into a shitty van for my soon-to-be-sister-in-law, then it’s a good thing I’m used to lying for a living.
